Over Land and Sea; A Log of Travel Round the World in 1873-74 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ...from the gloom and sterility and savage grandeur of the mountains on a little Paradise at our feet. The Hawaiian Government have not only built an excellent hotel, and so done good service to tourists, but they have just completed a really imposing Parliament House, erected and arranged in a style such as not even those well acquainted with Honolulu would have ventured to anticipate. It is built of concrete, stands in its own grounds, shortly to be planted, and has cost 3o, ooo/.--only 5ooo/. more than the hotel. The building is not only for debates, but contains in addition to the large Council Chamber--in which spittoons abound, but smoking is forbidden--a host of offices devoted to the transaction of legal and Civil Service business, and is surmounted by a fine clock-tower, whence we obtain a grand bird's-eye view of the town, and indeed all the southern side of Oahu. The Hawaiian Parliament consists of two Houses in one, the seventeen nobles and the twenty-eight representatives of the plebs sitting together in the same Hall, and their votes having equal weight. Mr. Bishop, the Honolulu banker, an American by birth, is the President, and occupies a dais at the head of the chamber; on his right are the Treasury N benches, where sit the Attorney-General, and the Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Interior; on his left are the seventeen nobles; facing him sit the twenty-eight members of the Commons. It is two in the afternoon before we arrive, and the House has just risen, so we are unable to hear a debate, but we learn that business commences every day at ten, and is generally carried on for four hours. Prayers in Hawaiian are first offered up, the minutes are then read in English and Hawaiian, and the debates come on. Several of the...